Spoilers For a Show You Don't Wanna Watch
by Lucillia
Summary: The Doctor had only stopped to let Barbra and Ian out for some fresh air. He most definitely hadn't expected or wanted three naked strangers to break into his Tardis the minute he did so.
1. Chapter 1

"Doctor, where did you bring us this time?" Amy asked as she peered out of the door of the Tardis and saw a great deal of flesh in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and textures.

"The Three Suns resort on.." The Doctor said as he flung open the door of the Tardis. "Oh, wow! The Two Oceans nudist colony! Boy does that take me back. I remember the time when The Master and I stole our teacher's Tardis and..."

"Nudist colony?" Rory said. "Why would the Tardis drop us off at a nudist colony?"

"Well, I'm game if you are." Amy said as she reached for the hem of her shirt.

"Oh well, why not?" he said, vaguely remembering that the last time he'd been here, he'd been young despite his aged body and stiff and formal and trying to set a good example for his granddaughter who'd been the result of the Time Lord equivalent of a teen pregnancy and whose mother had been...

The Master had never forgiven him for that particular lab accident, despite the fact that it had been completely his fault. If he hadn't...

No sense dwelling on the past. It was just too painful, despite the fact that there had been a good reason for letting Susan go as he had. On the last APB that had been put out for him before he'd hid her with her new boyfriend, Susan had gone from being listed as a case of custodial interference to being listed as an accomplice which meant that rather than being returned to her exceedingly negligent parents, she would've been punished alongside him had they been caught back then.

It was rather fortunate that Law Enforcement on Gallifrey had been exceedingly lax, and made the stereotypical cop hanging around the doughnut shop look positively dutiful towards his work in comparison, considering what often happened to Time Lords who were caught after breaking the law. There was the whole of Time and Space for the lot of them to go searching through after-all.

Less than a half hour later after the Doctor once again closed the door on a certain portion of his life, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory emerged from the Tardis ready for their next adventure. Amy and Rory were only clad in sandals, and the Doctor was rather nicely outfitted in Cowboy boots, a bowtie - since bowties were cool - and a Stetson. Now properly er, outfitted for their expedition, the three of them set out to explore.

* * *

The Doctor frowned when he looked at the scan of the Tardis' surroundings. Why the devil had it brought them here of all places? Ian and Barbara had been clamoring for a bit of fresh air, but considering the society they'd been raised in, he didn't think they'd appreciate what they'd find outside the Tardis this time. Not that they ever really did.

"Ian, Barbara." he said, catching the attention of the pair of his granddaughter's school teachers that he'd basically shanghaied. "The society outside those doors is a primitive one, and they have customs that may shock you but..."

The rest of what he was going to say was cut off when the door to the Tardis blew open and three naked strangers ran inside.

"Shut it! Shut it! Shut it! Shut it!" the naked red-haired woman yelled as two equally naked men pushed the door shut while a probing tentacle was making its way inside.

As soon as the door was closed, the two naked men who were still facing the door started laughing despite the fact that they were practically out of breath while the woman started looking around, spotting the group who'd been stunned into silence by their arrival.

"Doctor!" the red haired woman exclaimed.

"Yes my dear?" the Doctor who was wondering how these strangers had gotten inside his Tardis said.

The naked man in the boots whirled to face him and looked as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Open the door, we need to get out of here right now!" the naked man in the boots said.

The Doctor complied, and as the doors opened several tentacles started to snake their way into the Tardis.

"On second thought," the naked man in the boots said as he and the other man pushed the door closed again. "Let's just stay here until it goes away. Amy, Rory, don't say anything about anything."

"Doctor?" the red haired woman said, looking at the naked man in the boots.

A horrifying suspicion began to blossom in the Doctor's mind.

"Would I be correct in believing you to be a later version of myself?" he asked, addressing the naked man in the boots as there were certain subtle differences in musculature and other things that marked him as being not exactly human.

Barbra and Ian looked confused at this, as well as shocked and indignant as they'd been since the trio had arrived.

"As River would say, _Spoilers_." the man in the boots who had his back end pressed against the door which would now need to be cleaned said.


	2. Chapter 2

After she finally processed the fact that there were actually naked people inside the TARDIS, Barbara - who didn't know what the heck was going on anymore if she even did in the first place before she started wandering through time and space and casually robbing corpses in Mayan temples - walked over to Susan and covered her eyes since the sight in front of her wasn't proper for a young lady of her tender years to see. The man in the boots and the bowtie became somewhat subdued under the combined disapproving gazes of herself, Ian, and the Doctor, as did his companions who somewhat embarrasedly tried to cover themselves up, which was a rather strange way for primitives to act considering...

"Right then, we'll just nip back to the wardrobe and then..." the man who also strangely answered to the name of Doctor said, starting towards the labyrinthine interior of the TARDIS. "Come along Ponds."

The indicated "Ponds" blushed slightly before complying with their leader's orders.

"Everything's so white!" the red haired woman exclaimed as she followed the man she had called Doctor out of the TARDIS control room.

"I still have that Desktop theme archived somewhere. I never use it though. Too boring." the man who the red haired woman called Doctor replied.

"What is going on?" she asked after the trio who'd presumably departed in the direction of the wardrobe were gone.

"Do you remember how Grandfather and I told you we weren't human?" Susan who had pulled her hand away from her eyes asked.

"Yes," Ian replied. "But..."

"When our kind are about to die, we have the ability to change in order to prevent that death. To live a new life after our previous lifespan has ended." Susan said. "The man you saw is going to be my grandfather at some point in the future."

"How is that possible? He doesn't look a thing like him!" Ian exclaimed.

"That is one of the more unfortunate side-effects of Regeneration." the Doctor replied. "When we Regenerate, every last cell in our bodies is revitalized, true. But, our DNA gets scrambled in the process, recombining in new ways with genes that were previously recessive coming to the fore, and genes that were previously dominant and apparently not optimal considering our deaths becoming recessive and being pushed into the background. In essence, we become a new person. A person who possesses the memories of the old, but also has a different appearance, different tastes in food and attire, different likes and dislikes, and different ways of responding to the same situation."

"So, you could essentially live forever then?" she asked, stunned by this revelation and not quite able to process it.

"Unfortunately no." the Doctor replied. "Our genetic structure can handle being ripped apart and shoved back together again only so many times before it finally destabilizes completely and we die a final death."

"But how can you be so different? Aren't men the sum of their memories?" Ian who apparently wasn't as lost as her when it came to discussions of DNA and genetic structures asked.

"Men are only partially the sum of their memories Chesterson." the Doctor replied. "Nature plays a part in it as well. If you take two children from two different families and put them through the exact same life experiences, you will find at the end that despite the way they were raised they are not identical despite having gone through everything together. While they will be very similar in many if not most respects, different emphasis will be placed on different events according to the nature of the child, and what was important to one may not be important to the other."

What followed the Doctor's statement was a discussion that had been outlawed on Gallifrey if only to put an end to the endless debates on the nature of Life and Death and whether the person who walks away after a regeneration was the same being as the person they had been before considering the biological changes which included a near-complete remapping of the brain.

* * *

While Ian, Barbara, and the Doctor were having a discussion on Regeneration and exactly how the old man who'd kidnapped the future Mr. and Mrs. Chesterton could possibly be a young man who ran around naked later in life, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory were sorting through the wardrobe trying to put together outfits they might find suitable. Part of the Doctor's problem was that his favorite clothes and their TARDIS made copies wouldn't be there for ages seeing as he hadn't stolen them from the hospital yet.

"I don't recognize any of this stuff." Amy said as she sorted through clothes that were more Susan's size, seeing as they actually belonged to Susan who had purchased a number of the outfits in 1963.

"If I don't change it myself in order to suit either myself or the home era of my companions, the wardrobe changes on its own over time. Stuff that me or my companions don't even bother looking at usually gets cycled into storage after about a decade or so." the Doctor replied as he sorted through the coats trying to decide if he even wanted to try bothering with Victorian wear or not, seeing as either Victorian or Edwardian dress was basically his default mode when he couldn't find other suitable attire.

Spotting the Sherlock Holmes type outfit he'd worn while racing around London during that whole incident with Weng-Chiang and that time cabinet a few regenerations back, he smiled. Sherlock Holmes was cool, ergo that outfit was cool, ergo he'd be wearing it since it seemed that the only other option would be either Ian's stuff or his old clothes seeing as it would be terribly rude to go changing his wardrobe around without consulting himself.

Eventually, after a bit of grumbling on his companions' parts and apparently some surreptitious assistance from the TARDIS that had provided some semi-suitable attire for his companions, everyone was dressed. Rory looked a bit self-conscious in his toga, but seeing as he'd spent a couple millennia dressed as a Roman Centurion, it wasn't the worst he had worn. Amy, as always, had found a short skirt of some sort to wear, and some tight top that he was reasonably certain he hadn't seen within ten miles of Susan at any point during their travels seeing as he would've burned the darned thing and told her to find something proper to wear back when he was trying to at least play the role of the responsible grandparent.

After they were all dressed, they headed back into that blindingly white and insanely dull TARDIS control room where his first self was fielding questions from the pair of humans he'd kidnapped, inadvertently changing the course of his life and causing him to interfere like mad in the fate of the universe rather than being content to watch from inside events as he previously had been. The conversation fell silent when the participants noticed their presence. When Ian had spotted Rory, the corner of his mouth twitched upward and he made a snorting sound, obviously trying not to laugh.

"And, where did you pick up those two, hmm?" his first self asked, critically appraising his Ponds and apparently finding them unsuitable.

"Ah, you know, a little town in the middle of nowhere. I figured I kept Amy waiting too long for that trip I promised her after I destroyed her garden shed and that I owed Rory a bit of a trip after I accidentally stole his fiancee and gate-crashed his stag party. And, before you make any comments about me being irresponsible, don't think I don't recognize that creature that followed us to your TARDIS." he replied with that impish grin that had given Borusa fits back when he was an exceedingly irresponsible young lad.

"Are you sure he's the same man?" Barbara said, studying him critically.

Unlike Barbara who was trying to wrap her head around him, Ian was too busy sitting in a corner holding his belly in pain as he tried not to laugh to chime in any questions or observations he might've had.


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor, seeing how Ian was valiantly trying to hold his laughter in, turned with his Inverness almost majestically swishing behind him and started stalking around the console room as if he were looking for clues. Trying to get Chesterton to finally crack was better than thinking about the past he'd let lay dormant in his mind for many centuries on this day that seemed so determined to bring everything back.

As he'd told himself thousands of times before, this too shall pass. He just had to keep moving forward until it did.

As he fiddled with a magnifying glass he'd found in one of his pockets which didn't yet contain a yo-yo, ball of twine, and who knew how many other odds and ends including a couple bags of Jelly Babies and a bag of Liquorice Allsorts, Susan placed herself directly in his line of sight.

"What did you lose this time grandfather?" she asked with the air of a young person who's growing tired of humoring their elder because they'd gone through the same routine dozens of times before.

"Many things, a great many things, except for my marbles." he said, trying not to remember everything that that oh so familiar voice which had been lost to him long ago brought back. "The humans keep claiming that I've lost my marbles, but I know that that isn't true since I always keep them in my right coat pocket."

Ian finally lost his battle against the laughter that threatened to overtake him at this, and started laughing until he couldn't breathe, alarming Barbara, Amy, and Rory who then rushed to his aid as his younger self watched him suspiciously, his protectiveness towards his companions finally beginning to manifest.

"Grandfather!" Susan said in a slightly scandalized tone when she'd finally divined the reason for his behavior. The expression on her face at that moment was pure Koschei.

_The two young men had been set to clean the lab in which they had created a cross between a Tellurian Octopus and a tentacled land mammal which they had turned loose at some nudist colony as a prank after they'd stolen a Time Capsule which had belonged to one of the Academy teachers. They had started out cleaning but Theta had done something funny and things devolved into roughhousing. The two ended up bumping into some primitive alien machine that one of the older students was studying, accidentally activating it._

_"My arm's stuck!" Theta exclaimed._

_"So's mine!" Koschei yelled as he tried to pull his arm from the device which had firmly latched onto it._

_There was a ping and both boys' arms were released. The relief the boys felt at this was short lived however, because moments later a hatch opened in the device and a small naked pink thing that was making an unholy shrieking noise was being slid out onto the table on which the machine rested._

_"This is all your fault..." Koschei said as he stared down at the small creature which had black hair much like his own._

_"How is this my fault?!" Theta exclaimed as the creature opened a pair of eyes that matched his._

_Eventually, the shrieking caught the attention of the teacher who was supposed to have been supervising them, and he ran for a medic who ended up looking the creature over, wrapping it in a thermal blanket, and congratulating the two boys on the birth of their daughter._

"Something wrong Doctor?" Amy asked, pulling him out of his memory of the day on which Susan's mother had been born.

"Nothing. Nothing." he replied. "Something just crawled out of hibernation is all."

"Well," his younger self who was examining the viewscreen said. "It would seem that the creature that was chasing you has gone, which means you can_ get off my TARDIS_."

"Gladly." he said, giving Susan one last look before reluctantly turning his back on her because he knew he would say the wrong thing if he remained, and Susan didn't need to be burdened so soon before...

"I'll just need to briefly come back to return these." he said, gesturing to the clothes that his Fourth self was going to wear during his and Leela's trip to London.

"You can keep them." his younger self said stiffly.

"I said I will need to return these." he said.

"I don't see why, _I'm_ never going to wear them." his younger self said, a bit of the old fire returning to him for a moment.

"That's what you think." he muttered as he went out the door which had been opened for him and his companions.

The area surrounding the TARDIS and his TARDIS which was over just a little ways to the East was mercifully free of the creature that had pursued him, Amy, and Rory. People were now staring at him and his companions however because the group of them were wearing clothes in the middle of a nudist colony. Blushing in embarrassment, Amy and Rory stripped, seeing as being naked was apparently proper while being outside if everyone else's reaction to their being dressed was any indication. Shrugging, he followed suit and turned to return the outfit he'd borrowed as well as Amy and Rory's clothes early. It was as he turned around that he'd discovered that Susan, Barbara, and Ian had followed him and his companions off the TARDIS. Barbara and Ian were looking positively scandalized by their surroundings, but Susan was taking it in stride the way she did most things.

"What're you three doing out here?" he asked.

"We wanted to see your TARDIS, grand father." Susan replied.

His first impulse had been to yell for the three of them to return to their own TARDIS and forget about his as well as the fact that they'd seen him, but then he realized that he didn't really have anything that could destroy time as he knew it sitting out and so long as he kept Susan and the others away from any computers or the library...

"Fine." he said. "Let me just return these, and we'll be on our way."

Pretending to ignore the cheering behind him, he made his way back to the old boring white TARDIS that was occupied by his younger self.

"You coming with as well?" he asked as he strode through the console room on his way to the wardrobe.

His younger self just made a face and grumpily stalked over to the door as he disappeared into the interior of the TARDIS. It would seem that his insatiable curiosity had struck again.


End file.
